Microsoft's new releases plans (Feb. 2012)
For the ones who did not get the time to follow the news….
Windows 8
Anticipated release date: Beta expected "late February"; possible release to manufacturing on x86 and ARM between Q3 2012 and early 2013
Windows Server 8
Anticipated release date: Possible release to manufacturing between Q3 2012 and early 2013
System Center 2012
Anticipated release date: Early 2012, possibly April, to coincide with the Microsoft Management Summit event
SQL Server 2012
Anticipated release date: First half of 2012
Internet Explorer 10
Anticipated release date: Between Q3 2012 and early 2013
Office 15
Anticipated release date: Q4 2012
Exchange 15
Anticipated release date: Q4 2012
Doing Scrum in Microsoft Project 2010
Two year ago, I was involved in a project for a luxury company, and previous project manager used Scrum to manage it and the deliveries. After a quick introduction of this methodology, we used his tools (mainly Excel) to implement Scrum.
Today I would like to reuse Scrum in another project, but I wanted to see if it’s possible to use Microsoft Project instead of Excel to manage Scrum artifacts as Product backlog, Sprint Backlog and Burn down chart.
Note that this article will not explain the methodology; you can check this article in Wikipedia or watch this interesting video by Hamid Shojaee for a quick course on Scrum.
What you need to know about ITIL v3
Sometimes
you try to create THE article that contains great resource links on one
particular domain so that if someone ask you questions about it, you just answer "man, the greatest resource list in on my blog" :-). Few weeks ago, I started to collect information related to
ITIL V3, also to try to stay updated about this methodology, as
I do not practice it so often.
While
searching those videos or interesting article on Google, I found this blog
post, from Ahmad Salah, Project Manager and Process Improvement Engineer, in
Egypt (his Blogger profile is here). This kind
of information collection work that is just amazing.
Read
the article if you want to know ITIL V3.Video: How To Tell If A Project Schedule is Good
Excellent
6 minutes video, from http://www.cogtechinc.com,
presented by John Rigoli, PMP about "How To Tell If A Project Schedule is Good".
Microsoft Project 2010 - Creating a resource pool without MS Project Server
Without having Microsoft Project Server, here is a way to manage shared resources through various projects. By using this method, the program manager or unit manager can check team member allocation and plan projects.
The first thing is to create the resource pool. To create a resource pool:
· Create a new blank project
· On the Resource tab, select resource sheet
· Enter your resources and their information (different type, working time, calendar…)
White papers on Microsoft Project Server 2010
I found on some blog posts many interesting white papers related to Microsoft Project Server 2010. Honestly I don’t read everything yet J but I am quite confident about the high quality of such documentation. These white papers have been writing by Microsoft employees, partners, MVP’s…
Mainly in English, there are also some white papers in French:
· Project and SharePoint Server 2010 — Better Together, workflow creation techniques…
Of course you can also check the reference in term of documentation:
· Technet
· MSDN (more for developers)
10 Questions PMs Should Know the Answer To
I read an interesting article by Philip R. Diab about what are the 10 questions a project manager should know the answer to, here they are:
- Why did we undertake the project and is that reason still valid?
- What will it take to make the customers/stakeholders happy once the project is complete?
- Where are we? Which tasks were completed and which ones are left?
- How much of the budget has been expended and how much is left?
- How close are we to the finish line (resources & tasks)?
- Do key stakeholders understand where things are with the project?
- Are there critical (high probability/high impact) risks that may cause the project to derail?
- What are the top issues the project is facing and causing delays?
- Are team members optimistic or pessimistic about the project’s chances of success?
- What happens when all the deliverables are complete?
The full article can be read on Philip R. Diab’s blog, I really encourage you to read it and other papers he published.
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